County Cork based entrepreneur James Horgan has found a unique way to beat the gloom and doom of Ireland’s recession with the launch of a new website called petirishrocks.com that allows customers to buy a very special kind of pet. It doesn’t chew your favorite slippers to pieces or sharpen its claws on your antique table and is fully house-trained. Why? Because this undemanding pet is an Irish rock.

The website allows customers to browse and select a pet from the profiles of 32 different rocks, one from each county in Ireland, which will then be lovingly packed up and sent to its new owner with a certificate authenticating its pedigree as a genuine Irish pet rock.

Each pet rock also has a name and a unique personality profile. For example, there’s Aidan from Antrim whose profile reads: AIDAN is as nice a boy as you could hope for. He is a dream of a pet; quiet, calm, house-trained, and walks well on the lead. AISLING from Dublin is another story altogether as apparently she is “as mad as a hatter,” “not for the faint-hearted” and you “can’t take your eyes off her for a minute!”

James explains why these personality profiles are so important, “The Irish people have always been regarded as a friendly, hospitable and, perhaps, sometime roguish race with a twinkle in our eyes. Our storytelling, musicality and creativity are legendary. It was important to me that our pet Irish rocks reflected those same personality traits. Starting with giving the rocks individual, traditional Irish names we built up a unique personality for each of them.”

Petirishrocks.com targets Irish people throughout the world, no matter what generation they are, providing “a direct connection to their native land” and “a little piece of Ireland in their own home.” James believes his rocks to be the silent witnesses of a land with an ancient and rich history; a land of myths and legends, of magic and bravery and that from the ancient times of the mythical heroes, the arrival of St. Patrick, and Viking invasions to the modern country, they have been part of it all and hold Ireland’s history and mystery deep within them.

So, with the highest respect for the rocks of Ireland, James wishes to ease the worries of those who are worried that Ireland’s environment will be adversely affected by the removal of its rocks, stating: “All our rocks are sourced from approved and sustainable commercial quarries. Purchasers can rest assured that Ireland’s beautiful scenery will not change in any way.”

James Horgan takes a light hearted approach to the Irish recession through this enthusiastic enterprise and owners of the pet rocks are encouraged to share their stories and photos with the rest of the world on facebook.